The Haunts

Levy wanted to comfort his nanna by telling her everything was going to be fine, but in his gut, he knew that this wasn’t so. They had been so very close while he was growing up, and she had an open mind to everything he did. From as far back, he could remember she was always supportive, accepting, and loving as ever. Nothing he did ever faze her, or made her love him any less; even the time when he was four and climbed up on the kitchen cabinet took out all of the coffee cups and peed a little in each one. Back then, he was so proud of his achievement. His father and his ma weren’t too happy about it, but good old grandmamma laughed and thought it was a hoot and a half. Now, Levy is practically an adult, having to see his childhood heroine so near to death’s door. Who can I turn to when you’re gone my dear nanna? He began to weep as he held her hand.

“I hate to come all this way to share with you my troubles, nanna. Somehow I seem to attract trouble from others. Why must I always be the victim?”

Nanna motioned Levy to come closer. Her voice is barely a whisper.

“I know that life has been unfair to you Levy, but now I ask that you must be strong. High school is just an institution full of hot-blooded teenagers that are full of spit and vinegar, and it shall pass once you graduate, but after that, you have your whole life of who you are will truly begin. The things you felt were important as a child will change once you become an adult.” She glanced at the wound on his head. Remnants of a doctor’s stitchery showing signs that the wound had healed. “Your Ma told me all about those awful boys hurting you as you tried to protect your girlfriend. That was quite noble of you. I hope she was well worth the risk.”

Levy arched his eyebrow. Wondering what nanna thought of Sheryl, but in a way, he almost didn’t want to know either.

“All I got from it was a mild concussion and a show-n-tell scar.” He scrunched up his face and added, “But I’m sure I’ll pull through.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” she gave him a tired smile. “It’s also just one of the many wounds you’ll have to bear in this life. After I’m gone, you’ll have to learn how to live without me. So believe me when I say you still have many more important things to deal with that many others may not realize or even notice.” Her eyes fell on the tribal glyph that she had tattooed on the flat of her palm when she was far younger. “Do you ever remember asking me about this?” She brought her hand up to show Levy.

“Yeah,” Levy used the back of his hand to wipe away the tears. “You said you had it done when—”

She tapped at her nose and winked, “I was much younger than I am now, but a little older than you are today. But did I tell you who gave this to me?”

“No.”

“A shopkeeper at the Apothecaries Arcadian. He gave it to me, and allegedly it would protect me from evil,” she huffed. “Imagine that a pithy thing like this could ward off evil. As if it were as simple as that,” her chuckle became a long drawn out cough so she could catch her breath.

“What does this have to do with-” He stopped as she put up her hand.

“I’m getting to that-” she gestured for him come within reach. “Go on now, take my hand,” she whispered.

Levy reached out and took her tattooed hand in his and with as much strength as she could muster she held tight. Her tattooed palm lay flat upon his palm.

Levy felt her hand getting hot to the touch, so bad that his instinct was to retrieve his hand. But the old woman held on. He watched in awe and stupor as a smoldering glow came from their hands, along with the sheer agony of burning flesh.

“Hush now…” she then tsked at his reaction, “it can’t possibly be that bad.”

“But it burns,” he yelped but didn’t dare pull his hand away.

After a few uncomfortable seconds, his nanna retrieved her hand. She looked exhausted now than when he first came in. A faint trail of smoke rose from her hand.

Levy scowled at his nanna as he pulled his sore hand back and saw that she had burnt the same tribal symbol on his hand just by being in close contact. He looked at her palm and saw the oddest thing.

The symbol on her hand had disappeared.

He took her palm back to scrutinize it. “H-how is that even possible?” The strange tattoo that had transferred to his palm started to glow a bit but insistently, like a beacon.

“This will warn you when true evil approaches,” she then took his hand in hers and waved her hand over his open palm, and the tribal markings faded away. “It’s hidden from view now, but it’s still there.”

“What kind of true evil are we talking about here?”

“I’m so sorry Levy. But there isn’t enough time left for me to explain everything. You need to know about Cailleach Bhéarach. In my dream, I saw her come to your bedroom window like she had when I was just a babe, and many times later when I was much older.”

“Okay…” He gave her the stink eye, “you’re not talking about that creepy old bag lady from last night, are you?” Levy stood up straight, shocked that she knew. “You really do, don't you? I tried to blank her out of my mind, and I barely remember much after that. B-but then on the way here I-I spotted her again in a crowd and it looked like she made this hail storm appear-” Levy realized that he might be rambling, so he sat back down on his chair wearing a blank look on his face. “I think she must've also summoned up all of those rats and roaches to appear out from the sewer…” He shivered, “that was just as disturbing.”

She too came to visit me many times in the same room you are occupying now. But listen to me, you can’t stay here for much longer. If she arrives, and I know that she will come for me, you can’t be here…” She trailed off, “I’m too damn weak to protect you from her wrath, and you’re not ready to face her on your own.”

“So she wasn’t a figment of my imagination, she’s real?”

“As real as you and I,” she nodded. “She once told me that when she first came to my bedroom, I was just a babe.” She looked away, “and then, she returned some years later when Alfred was drafted in the Vietnam War,” she blushed.

“What does she want?”

Levy’s grandmamma pointed at his chest and he felt an odd sensation, a kind of fluttering, and he pulled back a little afraid. She wants my heart? What the fuck for?

“Long ago, our ancestors lived in Ireland on an island called Oiléan Bearra. There, we worshiped the old Gaelic Gods. But once around 430 AD a missionary named Palladius came with his teachings of Christianity, and our clan had turned away from the Old Ones and had embraced the teachings of the one true God. This had caused a ruckus of violent proportions, and many had been persecuted, tortured, and died for their beliefs. Many of the old Gods that had survived managed to escape to remote parts of the world where Christianity hadn’t reached yet. Those that didn’t leave were either burnt or tortured as false Gods, but not before passing a gift to those that had still believed in them and prayed to them in secret.”

“They gave our ancestors a gift?”

“Yes,” She coughed weakly. “Cailleach Bhéarach is an ancient hag, or what you would call a very powerful witch. But she is an ancestral force from our bloodline, the last of her kind and she has been keeping track of the power she had bestowed to our family for many generations. She spotted the gift in me when I was but a babe, and now she has seen that gift had carried over in you. A rarity, I might add, because it usually appears in some of our women but not in the men.”

“But then she must be at least-”

“She was there when Bishop Palladius came to the isles.”

Levy went quiet, thinking of how many centuries the old hag had lived. She was still powerful and spry for someone so antiquated.

“What is this gift?” Levy had to ask, “What does it do and what will she profit from it?”

“I don’t know,” his Grandmother pondered, “she never revealed it to me. She just kept coaxing me to give it to her. So I suspect it must be more powerful than she is and she was once our people’s God.”

“Then what should I do?”

“What matters most is that you don’t give anything to her. She can’t steal it from you. If ever, you must give it to her by choice. But she will go to great lengths to get whatever it takes to retrieve it again.”

“Is she still a God?”

“She was once considered a God, but for as long as I’ve known her, she is anything but that.” His grandmamma looked up as the fluorescent lights overhead flickered and threatened to die. “As I said, don’t be fooled by her. She may not be like she once was, but if you let her take your power away, she will be far worse, and her wrath on us all would become tenfold.”

“What should I do?” Levy noted the tattoo his grandmamma transferred to his wrist started to glow and burn.

“If I were you, I’d hide right—now...” Nanna started to wail in great pain and gripped onto the bed sheets. “She comes.” From her boney chest, a light burst through his nanna’s gown. It grew so bright that it bathed Levy in its blinding light. He wanted to scream out, to turn and run away, but he could not, even if he tried to escape his fate.

In the hallways and every room on the second floor, the overhead light fixtures exploded, spraying sparks and a shower of glass. Every electrical device and monitor on the floor, burst to life, needing the attention reserved usually for the patients waiting to die in their beds. Visitors called for assistance, as patients awoke in horror, speaking gibberish. Doctors and nurses scrambled from room to room to assist those in need. Levy knew that the old crony was on their floor; that there was no time left to seek out a wheelchair and take nanna away from this place. Finally, at the last second, he decided to slip into the room's washroom and wait.

Through the chaos, a shadowed figure lingered at the door to nanna’s room. Levy felt the hairs at the back of his neck rise as he hunched down while having the bathroom door open wide enough to see his nanna’s reaction. She looked to the visitor a little startled at first, but then she still managed a brave smile as the person entered the room. Levy jumped as the fluorescent tubes overhead exploded and the room sparkled with tiny shards of glass. Somewhere near her entrance, a red backup light came on to show the way to the nearest exit.

“I dreamt you would come for me, one day,” nanna pulled her bed sheets closer to cover up.

“It took me quite some time to locate you,” the old woman in layers of filthy clothing shuffled into view. “I almost forgot…almost.” The crony tapped the side of her head. “My memory may not be what it used to be, but when it all comes back, it’s like a sharpened blade.”

Levy noted that the strange woman’s hairy legs had no shoes and her calloused feet caked with mud. Layers of the skirt’s she wore dripped of grime and rainwater. Occasionally, a bug or two dropped to the floor from her skirt to search for another place to reside.

Levy knelt low in the bathroom and held a hand over his mouth to keep from gagging from her foul smell.

“I know what you came for,” he heard his nanna say to the old bag lady.

“Do you, now?” The old crony crept closer to Levy’s nanna. Close enough to touch.

“Are you going to give up the ghost before or after I take what’s mine?” The old woman taunted, “or are you just gonna play hard to get like you always were good at, my little darling?”

“Come closer,” she whispered weakly, “so I can see you better. I want to see how much you’ve changed since we last met, remembering you being so beautiful.”

“Oh, I ain’t got time to reminisce over such things anymore.” The bag lady bent forwards and cupped a wrinkled hand over her good ear. “So say what you have to say, and then I’ll be on me way.”

What was left of the old woman’s strength nanna grabbed the old crone’s arm then yelled to Levy.

“Leave while you still can!”

Levy pushed the bathroom door wider, and before he could make good his escape, the old crony glided into his path.

“Where you think you’re off to now, girly-boy?” She had her hands out ready to gouge Levy’s eyes out. “You can run, but you can’t hide—for long!” She cackled.

Levy suddenly remembered his jackknife! He held the blade out in front of her face, ready to strike like a cornered cobra.

“What do you think you’re gonna do with that pithy thing?” the old crony mocked his pathetic attempt to threaten her. “You’re gonna stick me with it?”

“Get away from my nanna, you old crow!” Levy slashed his blade back and forth in front of her. “Leave us alone!”

The old woman drove forwards as Levy brought the blade forwards and felt it slip into the old woman’s flabby gut. Realizing what he had done, he yanked the knife back. His stomach churned and started to sweat, feeling ready to heave. At first, the old crony looked confused, considering that she didn’t think the little shit had it in him to fight back. In shock, Levy looked at the small blade expecting to see her blood all over it, but it looked as clean as the day he got it.

“Why, you little despicable cur! I didn’t think you had it in yea.” She managed to gasp out like free air. “You win this round, but I’ll be back—that’s a promise.”

With both hands on her bloodless wound, she began to deflate before their eyes.

“W-what in Hell is going on?” Levy stood back in a stupor.

“Indeed.” The wheezing sound of air issued from the old woman’s wound as she started to shrink away like an air-filled balloon. Spiders and other little creepy crawlers continued to drop off from within her clothing onto the floor. In a matter of moments, all remained of her was a filthy pile of old clothing, a mangy wig, a dirty scarf, and a spreading pool of muddy water.

Levy wore a look of utter disgust as he poked through the mess with his jackknife and found nothing else.

“What the hell is going on, hey?” He hurried over to his nanna and felt his frustration dissipate, and his heart sank with dread. “Nanna you gonna be okay?” Her hand felt cold and unresponsive. She looked blankly past him as if she were miles away. Her lips had no more secrets to tell.

As the heart monitor beside her bed screamed out in alarm, Levy reached over, closed her eyes, and then pressed his head to hers, weeping in despair.

As he closed his eyes, he could see her energy dispersing like waves of heat off a cooling body. There was no consciousness he felt, but a power, unlike anything he had ever imagined. As it dispersed outwards, he felt as if he could draw on it. So with his parted lips, he inhaled, and the energy from his nanna slipped into his lungs and distributed throughout his body. He imagined that she was giving her life force over to him and thus he felt stronger than ever before. He knew that with this energy in him he could accomplish so much more.

He felt hands grabbing him by the shoulder, pulling him back.

“W-what?” He was about to swear, but he was looking into the eyes of a distraught nurse who looked as if she had been working a double shift and just wanted to get home and slip into a warm bath. She was a plump dark-skinned woman of remarkable youth and a tired beauty that had seen her share of death.

“I-m so very sorry for your loss,” the nurse came in between Levy and his nanna, “but your grandmother has passed on.”

Levy went numb as the nurse ushered him aside. She then reached over to shut the monitor off. “Do you want to call your mom and let her know, or should I do it?”

Levy stammered to say something but his brain had gone blank. No matter how he tried, nothing coherent came out. He stared dumbly as the nurse repositioned his nanna’s body to look more comfortable. He then backed away and then turned to the door to exit, he heard the nurse complaining.

“What’s with this mess on the floor? Did you do this, sir? Sir?”

Without another word, Levy hurried down the hall, passing room after room, seeing the extent of damage the old crony had done to the floor. The hospice on the top floor was in utter disarray.

Whoever this old woman is or had claimed to be, Levy gritted his teeth, and she’s going to be a real thorn in my side.